The Impact of Contractor’s Technical Competence on Cost and Time Performance of Construction Projects in North-Central Nigeria
Zubair, Ahmed* & Ataguba, Joseph Obaje
Department of Quantity Surveying, the Federal Polytechnic Idah, Kogi State, Nigeria
Department of Estate Management, the Federal Polytechnic Idah, Kogi State, Nigeria
Email: zubairahmed6295@gmail.com
Corresponding Author: Zubair, Ahmed
ABSTRACT
Existing literature indicates that contractor’s technical competence is driven by an array of variables. These variables were deployed in this study to assess the impact of contractor’s technical competence on cost and time performance of state government-funded projects in North-Central Nigeria. 177 out of 225 questionnaire administered to contractors, consultants and clients across the six states of the study area were adjudged suitable for data analysis. Reliability analysis returned Cronbach’s alphas of 0.814 and 0.456 for subscales for cost- and time performance respectively. In descending order, contractor’s experience and ability (1st), quality of plant and equipment (2nd), quality of personnel (3rd), and sophistication in construction technology (4th) were found to exert significantly high impact on cost performance (p < 0.05). Although ranked in the first position, the high impact of contractor’s experience and ability on time performance was not significant. On the other hand, the quality of personnel (2nd), sophistication in construction technology (3rd), and the quality of plant and equipment (4th) were found to exert significantly moderate impact on time performance (p < 0.05). Contractor’s technical competence was generally found to have a significantly high impact on cost performance of projects (p < 0.05), contrary to time performance for which the moderate impact of contractor’s technical competence was not significant (p > 0.05). These results imply that contractor pre-qualification team for government-funded projects in North-Central Nigeria would have to rely on the specific variables of contractor’s technical competence in the quest to meet cost and time performance benchmarks.
Keywords: Cost performance, Time performance, Contractor, Technical competence, Construction projects, North-Central Nigeria
